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CO-OPERATION BETWEEN THE 

STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

AND LOCAL SOCIETIES 



BJ 
JOSEPH SCHAFER 




Reprinted from the Wisconsin Magazine of History 
Volume IV, Number 2, December, 1920 



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CO-OPERATION BETWEEN THE 

STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

AND LOCAL SOCIETIES 



BY 
JOSEPH SCHAFER 




Reprinted from the Wisconsin Magazine of History 
Volume IV, Number 2, December, 1920 



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CO-OPERATION BETWEEN THE STATE HISTORI- 
CAL SOCIETY AND LOCAL SOCIETIES^ 

Joseph Schafer 

A friend once remarked that the library of the Wisconsin 
Historical Society was an "historian's heaven." If the 
intention was to describe it as a very delightful place for the 
historian to work in, one must give his unconditional ap- 
proval. But if the word "heaven" herein was clothed with 
its customary meaning of a place or condition altogether 
satisfying, the verdict must be reversed. 

One does not require much experience with even so mag- 
nificent and relatively complete a collection as the one 
which is housed in the State Historical Library to convince 
himself that history cannot be fully written from existing 
collections. This is especially true of one who conceives of 
history as I conceive of the history of Wisconsin — as the 
story of civilization-building in this commonwealth down 
to practically our own day. It would be quite possible, no 
doubt, to write the history of the French regime, the history 
of the British regime, and numerous episodes of later history 
without leaving Madison. But when we come to the period 
of American pioneering in Wisconsin, to the development 
of our far-famed agricultural and dairy interest, our indus- 
tries great and small, and our social history based on the 
blending of several strong race elements, each possessed 
of its distinctive culture, the case is altogether different. 

Thanks to the statesmanlike planning of our predecessors 
and the liberal support of state legislatures, the library 
already contains vast stores of documents, books, pamph- 
lets, maps, and manuscripts illustrating phases of the com- 
plex historical process that has made Wisconsin what she is. 
But for a true and adequate interpretation of each one of 

* Notes for an address delivered at the meeting of the Waukesha County Historical 
Society, North Prairie, Sept. 18, 1920. 



4 Joseph Schafer 

the major lines of development we shall require an indefi- 
nite expansion of existing sources. 

NEED OF LOCAL STUDIES 

Without attempting even to suggest the wide range of 
material required for the definitive treatment of the history 
of agriculture in Wisconsin, or the history of lumbering, or 
textiles manufactures, or iron manufactures, or education, 
or science, or religion, or morals, or the fine arts, or music — 
all of which, and a hundred others, make the warp that 
unites with the woof of our complex human nature to 
produce the fabric of civilization in this state — it may 
suffice to point out that a prerequisite of such a complete 
history is a considerable group of local studies of a very 
intensive character. 

The geologist, intent on understanding the formation 
of the earth's crust in a given region, does not content 
himself with traveling over the region or with reading 
descriptions of surface conformations in various parts. 
Such a superficial view would tell him something, but not 
enough. In addition he wants the data that can be supplied 
only by a number of minute investigations into the char- 
acter of the crust at different points. So he goes to places 
where there are borings for salt or for oil, or excavations 
for bridge piers; where the flood waters have eroded deep 
trenches, exposing the strata to a considerable depth; 
where the action of glaciers has cut down sections of hills, 
leaving steep cliffs exposed; where the ocean tides or the 
water and the ice of inland lakes have written giant pages 
on crag and headland for the scientific student to read. 
After a sufficient number of such intensive studies he 
co-ordinates his data into an orderly account and interpreta- 
tion of the region. 

The historian may well take to heart the lesson which 
scientific research, in so many directions, enforces and 



Co-operation Between State and Local Societies 5 

reiterates. It has been charged against history that it is 
not firmly enough attached to reaUty, and in a certain sense 
the charge is true. Too many historical writers have been 
content to employ merely accessible material, shaping their 
stories to fit the data instead of finding the data that would 
enable them to tell their stories as they ought ideally to be 
told. 

If there is excuse for such deficiencies in the fact that 
the resources of private workers are often inadequate to the 
requirements of a rigorous historical method, such an excuse 
cannot be admitted in the case of work in which we have the 
support of the state and the co-operation of all historical 
elements and organizations of the state. Like the State 
Geological Survey, which was so brilliantly conceived and 
carried out by scientists like Chamberlin, Lapham, Strong, 
Irving, and others, the "Historical Survey" of Wisconsin 
must be as scientific as the nature of historical research 
permits. And one of the obviously scientific methods of 
assembling concrete data to serve the purposes of interpre- 
tation is to go to typical localities and study their history 
with the minuteness that becomes possible only when — to 
use a figure from science — the object you are studying is 
small enough to enable you to use the microscope. 

Take, for illustration, the history of an organized "town," 
the civic society comprised in a surveyor's "township." 
Within certain limits the life of such a town is typical of the 
life of the commonwealth, or even of the nation. The men 
and women who made homes in its river valleys, prairies, 
or "oak openings" are likely to be genuine "specimens" 
from the universal social amalgam; the farms, mills, work- 
shops, churches, schools, and stores would be typical of such 
institutions in a thousand American neighborhoods. And 
if this is true in the pioneer stage it is not less true in later 
stages, so that the conditions of change as worked out on 



6 Joseph Schafer 

the local plane will be applicable to more general history as 
well. 

Such local communities differ from one another, due to a 
considerable range and variety of economic and social 
influences. But, if a number of them taken indifferently 
from the several counties and sections of the state were 
studied intensively, the resulting material would serve to 
illuminate the entire course of Wisconsin history. How, 
then, shall we proceed in the study of a town? 

A METHOD FOR LOCAL HISTORY STUDY 

After mastering the topography of the area, and its 
physical relations, which determine or influence the com- 
munity's economic and commercial history, the next step 
is to acquire some real knowledge of the people who settled 
the town. This can be done by the use of various sources. 
One (and the most obvious, which also happens to be the 
least satisfactory) is to rely wholly on the statement of some 
aged person whose memory is supposed to reach to the 
social beginnings in that neighborhood. Another method 
is to consult town records, school records, church records, 
lodge records, and various local mercantile records as well 
as local newspapers, if there were any, for information 
about the first settlers, dates of their arrival, etc. This 
method is a good one but so laborious that few would have 
the time or the patience to employ it exclusively. It is a 
desirable collateral method. 

A method which is being fostered by the State Historical 
Society is one which begins with a township plat showing 
all the land grants, with names of private grantees, and 
dates of grants. The making of such plats is not a single 
or simple process, but involves several subsidiary processes 
as follows: First, a transfer to the township map, copied 
from the surveyor's map, of the data preserved in the tract 
books of the United States Land Office; second, the transfer 
to the map of similar data from the tract books of the State 



Co-operation Between State and Local Societies 7 

Land Office; third, transfer to the margins of the resulting 
plat of data from the surveyor's notebook descriptive of 
quality of land, kinds of timber, trails, etc., seen by him 
in making the original survey. 

As a starting point for the study of population this plat of 
original private grantees of the land has several advantages. 
It fixes two points concerning every land purchaser who was 
also a settler: the place of his settlement in the township, 
and the date of his purchase. It does not fix the date of 
settlement, though that is approximated in most cases. 

In the work of securing such plats we think the State 
Historical Society can function with advantage. All of 
the work of preparing the originals, except making the town- 
ship map and transferring the data from the United States 
Land Office tract books to the map, is performed by our 
force. When completed, the original plat is photostated, 
and thereafter reproductions can be furnished at a merely 
nominal price, whereas if an individual were preparing a 
plat, the expense in money and time would be considerable. 

However, the plat of original grantees of the land is not 
our final objective. The heart of our plan for the Wisconsin 
Domesday Book has been expressed in the words: "The 
opening of every farm in the American wilderness is an 
original creative process significant enough to deserve a line 
in the general history of civilization." It is the "makers 
of the farms" we wish to identify. Here local studies are 
required, as I have shown in my article on the Wisconsin 
Domesday Book.^ 

After identifying the actual settlers and locating them 
on definite subdivisions of numbered sections of land, there 
remain two preliminary inquiries both of which must per- 
force be carried on locally: (a) The physical character of 
the land as respects soil, conformation, ease of cultivation, 
and opportunity to communicate with markets, (b) The 

* Wisconsin Magazine of History, IV, 1, Sept. 1920. 



8 Joseph Schafer 

settlers, their social and geographical origins, training, 
experience, special intellectual, social, or occupational 
aptitudes, and outstanding ambitions — with any other 
data about them that may be procurable. 

DATA ABOUT THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE 

In the quest for information on the first head, the notes 
of the surveyors, inscribed on the margin of the plat, will 
serve as a starting point. And the geological surveys of the 
state will be a supplementary resource. Still, a minute 
familiarity with the township from actual observation of 
all its farms, or at least of typical farming areas, is necessary 
to a successful study of the agricultural and social history of 
the town. 

A good deal of help can be derived from the census tak- 
ers' descriptions of farms, which reveal the relation of 
cultivated to uncultivated and woodland, also the amounts 
per acre of the several crops raised. Still, this yields only 
more or less definite inferences, and inferences are not the 
same as facts. 

The census schedules also make a starting point in the 
study of social origins. They list the inhabitants by name, 
and give age, occupation, and state or country of nativity. 
Thus we know, from the census of 1860, that Isaac A. Sabin, 
twenty -five years of age, was a school-teacher and was born 
in New York. Further entries show us that his wife also 
was a New Yorker and that they had a daughter one year 
old who was born in Wisconsin. We want to know more 
about this school-teacher's origin, whether or not he was a 
New Englander and, if so, what formal training he had and 
at what schools. We want evidence concerning his experi- 
ence as a teacher, his character and influence as a man in 
the communities he served. Such knowledge local research 
alone will yield. Pursuing it, we find that he was probably 
of Connecticut parentage, that he was well-educated — far 
beyond the average district school-teacher — that he was a 



Co-operation Between State and Local Societies 9 

man of strong character and personality which he impressed 
upon his pupils. Thus, he was a genuine force in the social 
development of the neighborhood in which he taught a pion- 
eer school in a rude log schoolhouse. 

CO-OPERATIVE EFFORT 

If local societies will set themselves systematically to the 
problem of garnering such material for the social history of 
their communities, they will perform invaluable service 
and will make possible the intensive local studies of which 
we stand in need. The State Historical Society can supply 
basic helps for carrying out such programs in the way of 
census schedule transcripts for the different towns or 
counties, and other data collected at its library. To do this 
on a large scale would call for a considerable enlargement 
of its clerical force, but such enlargement is contemplated 
in the plans for utilizing the Burrows Fund income in pre- 
paring the Domesday Book. The county records and town 
records, the school records and church records, the cemetery 
records, and a variety of commercial records will be avail- 
able locally as special documentary resources. 

If we conceive the proposed "social-origins survey" 
under the form of a card index of first settlers, or of settlers 
who lived in the county (or other area) prior to a fixed date, 
the procedure would be about as follows: (a) The local 
society should select from its membership those who have 
a special interest in tracing social origins, and permit each 
one of these to cover in his or her study such areas as may be 
preferred. Cards of uniform size and form for filing should 
be furnished to all workers, together with a minimum 
schedule of points to be covered in the inquiry, (b) The 
results might be presented in the form of reports to the 
society from time to time and, in any event, should be filed 
at a central place. Copies of local files might be made for 
the State Historical Society, which would thus become a 
clearing house, heJpful to inquirers in all parts of the state. 



10 Joseph Schafer 

There are men and women who have a deep interest in 
the study of social origins, an enticing subject in itself. One 
man known to the writer, working on the subject from pure 
love of it, is even now familiar with the stories of hundreds 
of pioneers of his county. This is but a single illustration. 
Such knowledge ought to be recorded and carefully pre- 
served. It could be done best by local societies, but it will 
have to be done by some agency if our study of Wisconsin 
civilization is to be ideally complete. The State Historical 
Society invites conference with the local societies on this 
and other subjects of co-operative endeavor. 

THE STUDY OF LOCAL PROGRESS 

Either the persons who make the local social and physical 
surveys, or others, will employ the facts brought out by 
these surveys in pushing forward the study of local history. 
For practical purposes the history of a township in its 
development from pioneer days may be looked upon as a 
complex involving many special histories — and each of 
those special histories deserves separate treatment. It 
might be well if some writers would specialize on the history 
of agriculture in given townships, others on the history of 
manufactures, others on the history of education, others 
on the history of morals, and still others on the history of 
local politics, public improvements, religious organizations, 
etc. The advantage, we repeat, in studying general histori- 
cal themes under local conditions is that in this way we are 
placing the historical process, in small sections, under the 
microscope and compelling it to yield up secrets not hitherto 
revealed. The local community becomes at the same time 
a laboratory for testing the validity of social principles and 
hypotheses not definitely established. The more complete 
one's training for historical research, the more perfect his 
equipment for the study of the "Great Society," the more 
ample should be his reward from the local study suggested. 



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